The Vénat are one of the smallest in size of the races of the Fae. On average a mere three inches high, with gauzy looking dragonfly wings that fold into the body when the Vénat lies down to sleep, they appear weak, as if they could be crushed with ease. Such is not the case, however.

First, they are masters of flight with very good eyesight and hearing so it is hard to catch one. If a human comes full of rage against them, they will generally stay out of range unless their homes are threatened. Second, as those who have attacked them have learned to their cost, they have fangs. Tiny fangs, but they can pierce human skin, and deliver a paralysing poison.

For half an hour someone bitten is unable to move or speak, as the poison causes all the muscles that are not required for keeping a person alive to tense up, rather like in lockjaw. Having fallen to the ground, he is at the mercy of the Vénat until the poison wears off. Which is when they land on his or her head, and proceed to rip out his or her eyeballs with their hands and fangs and eat them like a human would eat a watermelon.

They consider human eyeballs to be a great delicacy. It also prevents the human, when the poison wears off, from threatening the Vénat again, as they can easily avoid a blind human. And the human will share his or her stories with other humans, thus boosting the dangerous reputation of the Vénat at no cost to them.

They also rob the human of their money, which to them is like a large chunk of gold or an armful of notes is to a human. They also take their weapons-four of them can carry away a human short sword as they are stronger then they look.

Whilst their favourite food is human eyeballs, they will eat all manner of meat, enjoy hunting and spearing spiders to cook and eat, avoiding the webs in the process, and will eat vegtables and some types of fungus. They either grow or hunt food themselves, buy it, or steal/poach it.

Male Vénat wear sensible clothes, depending on the season, with an opening for the wings. Female Vénat tend to wear silken dresses and tiny necklaces and bangles. There are magic users amongst them, but their magic is normally their size and not that dangerous to humans, unless a lot of mages get together to cast a really big spell. Their weapons are tiny spears and swords. They will almost never kill humans, prefering to leave them alive to tell tales of what happened to them.

They are not allways at war with the whole of humankind. They make good spies, and some of them, the ones without much respect for human law and order, will aid theives for a certain percentage of the take, and will carry out revenge attacks on people if paid enough. More law abiding Vénat will do things like unlock doors from the inside when someone has misplaced their key.

If noone who hires them tricks them, they are loyal in return, as they think that otherwise, news would spread and they would be unable to get anyone to hire them for anything. Once they managed to find a person in witness protection by infiltrating the building where the scheme was set up.

If double crossed the lawbreakers will bite and blind the one who doublecrossed them, the more law abiding ones will merely bite and leave the person paralysed for half an hour and will steal the rest of what they are owed. Their prices tend not to be all that high, as despite being far stronger then they seem, there is a limit on what they can carry, plus a human sized gold coin is to them in their world what a large gold bar is to a human.

They tend to live in large cities built within barrows, or within people’s houses, either paying legally to stay there in some cases, or outright squatting.

Additional Information

On the day of their most important winter festival, they feast, and the centrepiece of their feast is a human eyeball per family. So in the days coming up to it they are a lot more likely to attack humans. On the day of the feast itself, hardly a single one of the Vénat will be seen, as they are enjoying themselves with their families, opening presents, playing silly party games, and eating eyeballs.

In fact, whilst they would like to eat eyeballs at the feast, few in practise obtain such luxury except for the noblility amongst them. When they eat eyeballs, either it’s an act of revenge/vengence against those who would attack them or their cities or cheat them, or they were paid well to target someone.

If a human ever saves the life of a Vénat, (for example from a spider web, very rarely a careless Vénat will get stuck in one) the Vénat will be very happy and will do the human a free favour in return. Should the human later fall foul of the Vénat, if the Vénat whose life he or she saved is on the scene, then he or she will try his or her hardest to talk the other Vénat out of eating the eyeballs and will more often then not succeed.

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These remind me of nothing other than the fae of old. Vengeful little tricksters that one needs to be careful of. I'm honestly unsure about the eyeball thing; I'm not sure whether it adds a bit of reality to them, or detracts with its almost random nature. I'll have to leave that determination to others.

Not a bad sub. I can see them inflicting a terrible punishment on any arrogant mercenary or adventurer who thinks he can amuse himself by trying to catch one. As for their penchant for eating human eyeballs, do they just attack anyone at random or do they only eat the eyeballs of those who try to kill or capture them? If they were to go around attacking just anyone for their eyeballs, I imagine that most humans would declare open war against them.

Edited to clear up the eyeball thing. It's generally an act of revenge against those who attack them or hire them and then cheat them. That or they have been paid well by someone who wants someone else blinded. They don't carry out open war on humans, or they would be rooted out and genocided.

I agree with CM, it doesn't seem a new take really, but some of the details are neat.I actually like the eyeball eating. I mean on a battlefield, crows and ravens fight each other beak and claw for the choicest bits, the eyes and the lips. So why not these guys!? The eyeball eating may actually be my favorite part, because it is so pleasantly gruesome to imagine a little faerie popping one in his teeth, and because it kinda makes sense that they would! Eyeballs, as most animals know (and some human gourmets) pack a lot of flavor, and possess a boatload of nutrients. Oh, and they _are_ considered a delicacy in real life in many cultures.